Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “ν”

LAUFENBERG,ORGANISATION, WAR AND CRITICISM

Dr. HeinrichLaufenberg,

FritzWolffheimand Dr. CarlHerz.

“For distributing only to Party members, on presentation of their membership card.”

(Published by Dr. H. Laufenberg, Hamburg) (pp. 1-77).

Year???? (1915) ((undoubtedly 1915)).

Echo[1]followed the government slogan (8)—very interestingquotations fromEcho(9-15) (urging militarisation of the youth, 26 et seq.). Statements by Laufenberg and others in opposition to this.

Leaders’ tactic that borders on informing against, etc

Proposal for conference of “authorised delegates” rejected (23 and others).

§VIII: “Compact (Sammlung) of the leaders” (N.B.) (against the masses).

The discussion showed:

(((H. ThomassupportsElm and the others, p. 47. etc.)))

...“In districts 1 and 2, where the executive committees control the organisations, no meetings were called during the first four months of the war” (37)....

§XI: “The carrot and the whip”—the opportunists, the “bosses” of the organisations,Elm(Adolf von Elm) and Emil Krause—“gave a seat” on the “Public Welfare Committee” (48) to a young worker (of the Workers’ Education Central Committee), so that he should act in a spirit of moderation....

From Laufenberg’s reply (to this committee) of January 22, 1915:

...“Echo’s nationalist-chauvinist position (56)....

Hamburger Echois “the second largest Social-Democratic newspaper in Germany” (67).

TheNew York Volkszeitung—“has pursued a consistent proletarian policy during the world war” (67).

...“The development of the proletarian organisations during the lengthy period of consolidation of the capitalist national states was premised on the belief that great political upheavals in the foreseeable future were out of the question, and that for a long time to come the struggle would centre on a parliamentary compromise with the old entrenched forces....

...“The world war changed the situation at a stroke. It showed that the capitalist economy had passed from the period of continuous upward development into the era of a stormy, explosive extension of its field of action. This confronts the proletariat with the task of adapting its class organisations to the revolutionary needs of the future.

“The monstrous events of last summer caught the proletarian organisations unprepared. It was left entirely to the local bureaucracy to determine our attitude towards these epochal political developments, as if it were a matter of the monthly control of dues stamps” (74)....

And the authors even propose a “statute” (76-77).

[1]Here and below the reference is to theHamburger Echo, the daily newspaper of the Hamburg Social-Democratic organisation. Founded in 1875 as theHamburg-Altona Volksblatt; its name was changed in 1887. During the First World War it adopted a social-chauvinist position. It was closed by the nazi government in March 1933 and resumed publication in April 1946.